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Contemporary Trends
Jury
Stana Katić
Stana Katić is a Canadian-American film and television actress of Serbian descent. Born in Hamilton, Canada, in the family of emigrants from Dalmatia, she studied at Toronto University and The Theatre School at DePaul University. Stana Katić further developed her acting technique at the Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school, under the tutelage of Milton Katselas.
Some more prominent roles from the beginning of her career are in Frank Miller’s Ghost (2008), ensemble film Feast of Love (2007) and Bond franchise installment Quantum of Solace (2008). Simultaneously, Stana Katić started her career as a television actress. Supporting roles in acclaimed series such as The Shield and Alias soon landed her a lead role in nine seasons of Castle, the ABC hit series. Stana Katić went on to star in two films by the Polish brothers; Big Sur (2013) was an adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel, while For Lovers Only (2011) gave a discreet nod to the French New Wave. She then played in another novel adaptation, a Hollywood rendition of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Double (2013), followed by the leading roles in films Rendezvous and Lost in Florence. Her title role in the television series Absentia will be continued, as the broadcast of the second season is scheduled for 2019. Stana Katić established her Sine Timore Productions in 2008. Her film and television roles have brought her ten award nominations and seven wins. She currently resides in Los Angeles.
Slobodan Despot
Slobodan Despot was born in 1967 in Sremska Mitrovica. He is a publisher, publicist, writer and photographer. After an education in Switzerland, he worked in a renowned publishing house L’Age d’Homme as translator and editor between 1991 and 2004. He has translated the works of Dobrica Ćosić, Miloš Crnjanski, Momo Kapor, as well as other Serbian, English, German, Russian and Italian authors. Despot is an associate and editor-in-chief of several journals, and public relations advisor in different foundations and political institutions. Since 2006, he is the co-founder and head of the publishing house Xenia. He wrote two novels, four books of essays, a biography, two photo books, one art photograph, and a spiritual travel book through the Swiss Alps. His first novel Honey, published in the renowned Collection Blanche by Gallimard, received five awards, became a compulsory high school reading, and was published as a pocket edition. His second novel, Blue Ray, also published by Gallimard, was awarded the Prix Casanova in 2017 for best novel by a foreign author written in French. Slobodan Despot also runs a weekly newsletter magazine Antipresse.
Tancrède Ramonet
Tancrède Ramonet is a documentary author-director and an audiovisual producer. He graduated from philosophy (Sorbonne), management (Paris-Dauphine), documentary production (La Havane) and international production (EURODOC), he started his own independent documentary and fiction production company, Temps noir in 2002. Tancrède is vice-president of the association 1000 cultures, co-founder of the artistic project Régis Jauffret et ses nègres, member of the board for Défi jeunes, speaker at INA sup, Paris IX Dauphine college and for the International school of cinema and television of San Antonio de los Banos (Cuba), and a member of the USPA, Galilée Club and C7. Tancrède Ramonet and Temps noir have won both the 2006 best young French producer award and the 2010 best French producer award. He produces documentary films about social, historical, artistic and cultural issues, including Africa, story of a continent by Elikia M’Bokolo, Philippe Sainteny and Alain Ferrari, Requiem for revolution by Jihan El Tahri. In 2016, he directed Patrick Buisson le mauvais génie, co-directed with Ariane Chemin and Vanessa Schneider, broadcast on France 5, and No gods, No Masters, A History of Anarchism co-produced by Arte. His documentary, Che Guevara, Beyond the Legend was broadcast on the French channel France 5 in 2017.
Michel Amathieu
Michel Amathieu, director of photography, was born in 1955 in Crevecœur-en-Auge, France. He studied mathematics, obtaining a master’s degree in this field and practiced photography as a hobby. He taught mathematics in high school for two years before joining the evening classes at Louis Lumière film school and devoting himself to the art of cinematography. He worked on a number of short and feature films, before Dobermann (1996), directed by Jan Kounen, attracted the attention of public to his work. This was followed by a noted thriller Cousin (1997) directed by Alain Corneau, and I love L.A. (1998) by Mika Kaurismäki, in a slightly different vein. Michel Amathieu was then called to replace Thierry Arbogast at the end of Black Cat, White Cat (1998) shooting because of the delays: Thierry had engagements elsewhere. Since then, Michel followed Emir Kusturica on the No Smoking Orchestra tour, and took part in Super 8 Stories (2001). He returned to Serbia to work on Life is a Miracle (2003). More recently, Michel has worked as a director of photography on Volker Schlöndorff’s Diplomacy (2014) and Agnieska Holland’s Rosemary’s baby (2014). Along with his work on films, Michael Amathieu was a cinematographer on a number of commercials and TV series.
Photo galleries
Video galleries
Homage to Aleksandar Berček – Kustendorf 2018
Homage to Paolo Sorrentino – Kustendorf 2018
Homage to Gordan Mihić – Kustendorf 2017
Homage to Jacques Audiard – Kustendorf 2016
Homage to Andrei Konchalovsky – Kustendorf 2015
Homage to Asghar Farhadi – Kustendorf 2014
Homage to Zhang Yimou – Kustendorf 2013
Homage to Kim Ki-duk – Kustendorf 2012
Homage to Abbas Kiarostami – Kustendorf 2011
Homage to Johnny Depp – Kustendorf 2010
Homage to Nikita Mikhalkov – Kustendorf 2008
About the Festival
12th International Film and Music Festival Küstendorf is held between January 11 and 16, 2019 in Drvengrad, Mokra Gora. It is organized by Rasta International under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, the town of Mećavnik and The No Smoking Orchestra. Each year, Küstendorf focuses on emerging filmmakers and the greats of world auteur film.
COMPETITION PROGRAMME – The Competition programme of the 12th International Film and Music Festival Küstendorf brings us 21 films by Serbian and international authors. Young directors from Switzerland, Australia, Serbia, Norway, Republic of Srpska, Poland, Russia, Israel, France, Germany, Iran, Mexico, Spain, Macedonia, Turkey, and The Philippines, and their films compete for the Festival awards ‒ Gold, Silver and Bronze Egg
This year’s members of the international jury are Stana Katić, Canadian-American actress of Serbian descent, Slobodan Despot, publisher and writer from Switzerland, and Tancrède Ramonet, French documentary director and audiovisual content producer. The French director of photography, Michel Amathieu, will be deciding on the Vilko Filač award.
This year, the Festival received 718 submissions, and the films selected for competition stood out for their style, craftsmanship and authentic worldview. The Competition programme of the 12th Küstendorf includes 15 fiction, three documentary, two animated and one experimental short film.
CONTEMPORARY TRENDS – Emir Kustirica’s documentary about Jose Mujica ‒ El Pepe, a Life Supreme, which premiered at the 75th Film Festival in Venice ‒ will be shown on the opening night of the Küstendorf Film Festival. Another film in Contemporary trends is Happy as Lazzaro by Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, winner of Best Screenplay in Cannes. The film’s actors Adriano Tardiolo, Sergi Lopez and Luca Chikovani will join the workshop following the screening. On the third day, the audience will see Close Enemies and The Gentle Indifference of the World, represented by their respective directors David Oelhoffen and Adilkhan Yerzhanov. Marcello Fonte will join on the fourth day to represent Dogman by Matteo Garrone. Pope Francis: A Man of His Word by Wim Wenders is scheduled for the fifth day, to be followed by a discussion with producer Andrea Gambetta. Brothers Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo will tell us more about their film Boys Cry on the final day of the Festival.
RETROSPECTIVE OF GREATNESS presents Drugstore Cowboy with film’s actor Matt Dillon participating in the workshop. The Festival will also host actors Slavko Štimac and Sergi Lopez, with films The Lone Wolf by Obrad Gluščević, Do You Remember Dolly Bell? by Emir Kusturica and Western by Manuel Poirier selected from their rich filmographies for the retrospective. Also, this section of the programme will show Miloš Forman’s Taking Off and Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900.
KÜSTENDORF PRESENTS is showing You Have the Night, the first feature film by the Montenegrin director Ivan Salatić, and Game Girls by Alina Skrzeszewska.
During the Festival, Kapor gallery will be hosting an exhibition of works by painter Ratko Grlić, as well as a photo exhibition celebrating 70 years of the Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź.
MUSIC PROGRAMME – Every night, after film screenings and workshops, concerts complete the celebrated night life of Küstendorf. Festival guests will enjoy the performances of The Advahov Brothers Orchestra from the Republic of Moldova, the Italian musician Vinicio Capossela, the Norwegian-Serbian ensemble Jovan Pavlović and Marko Marković Brass Band, Serbia’s Kal, and Biljana Krstić and the Bistrik Orchestra.
Küstendorf International Film and Music Festival is one of the few festivals in the world recognizable for its exchange between the young and the veteran artists, hosting celebrated authors, actors and musicians, film authors and film students from around the globe, and other eminent guests from the world of film.
Mećavnik can be reached from three different directions: from Belgrade, from Višegrad, or from Zlatibor.
From Belgrade, there are multiple routes. From Belgrade, the most frequent route is taking national road M22 to Ljig, highway on the route E376 to Preljina, then road M5 through Čačak, Požega, and Užice. From Užice, follow E761 through Kremna. At the tenth kilometer after Kremna, there is a sign on the right-hand side to turn for Mećavnik where Drvengrad is located. The second way to travel from Belgrade is through Valjevo, Bajina Bašta, and Kremna, and then to continue as previously explained.
From the west of the Balkans, take the M5 highway across the national border. The turn for Drvengrad will then be on the left-hand side of the road. From the south of the Balkans, travel through Zlatibor, following E761 and E763.
From the Belgrade bus station, there are several daily departures for Višegrad. In this case, the passenger should tell the driver in advance to stop at Mokra Gora railway station as this is not one of the regular stops.
The Kustendorf International Film and Music Festival was founded in 2008 with the idea to bring together the icons of contemporary author’s cinema and young, future filmmakers. The festival takes place every year in January in Drvengrad in Mokra Gora, organized by “Rasta International” and under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia. The founder of this unique film and music festival is celebrated film director Emir Kusturica.
Kustendorf is a unique festival, without red carpet, billboards and advertisements, fully devoted to film, music, friendships and exchange of creative ideas and energy.
Drvengrad, the town made of wood, is the center of all festival happenings. It is a place where films are screened, concerts performed, where people meet, make friends, fall in love, work, learn, rest, sleep, eat, think and enjoy. Like any other town, Drvengrad has a central square with the church of St. Sava, a library, an art gallery, a market, a kindergarten, a “prison”, a swimming pool, a sauna, a hair salon, a pastry shop, a grocery shop, a sports area, cinemas, restaurants and many other facilities that make the visit to the Festival an unforgettable experience.
Film programme
The film programme at Kustendorf Festival is screened in several theatres. The Competition Programme and the Contemporary Trends Programme is screened at the biggest, Damned Yard theatre. Other films are shown in the Noam Chomsky amphitheater. After the projections of films, workshops are held by renowned film authors.
Music program
Every night at midnight, after the screenings and workshops, various music stars perform on stage.
Accommodation
No two rooms are alike in Drvengrad, since each room contains uniquely painted and handcrafted furniture, a different view and a different path leading to it. The rooms are located in authentic log cabins and all provide a bathroom, TV, phone and Internet access. During the Festival, accommodation in Drvengrad is booked for guests and participants of Kustendorf. Guests are also accommodated in hotel Iver in a newly opened ski resort, and Vizitorski centar, in close proximity of the village.
Restaurants
Restaurant Visconti – local and international cuisine provided for the Festival participants and guests
Cafe The Damned Yard – a perfect place to meet people in a great atmosphere
National restaurant Lotika – a national cuisine restaurant
Pastry shop Kod Ćorkana – sweets and hot drinks
Kapor Bar – a place to enjoy jazz music
Reception
Kind and diligent staff at the reception of the Mećavnik hotel will provide you with all necessary information about the festival, accommodation and events, and give answers to all your questions.
Like in previous years, young filmmakers and students whose films will be presented at the International Film and Music Festival Kustendorf, will be picked up from Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport by our welcome service and transferred to Kustendorf – Drvengrad.
Emir Kusturicа, Svetolik Mićа Zаjc, Milicа Jelаčа, Nenаd Meršnik, Mаrko Milosаvljević, Mаjа Kusturicа, Mаrijа Meršnik, Nаnа Kusturicа, Drаgаn Rаdivojević Lаv, Drаgаn Teodorović Zeko, Stevan Spasić, Ivan Milosavljević, Strаhinjа Mаrković, Aleksаndаr Jаkonić, Christopher Mondt, Dаnijelа Rаkić, Katarina Mihajlović, Milica Milosavljević, Vlаdimir Milаnović, Mаrinа Pаlаlić, Dejan Janković, Oliverа Isаilović, Brаnko Tomović, Ilija Nikolić Svetac, Uglješа Vrcelj, Žаrko Bubаlo, Željkа Bаšić Stаnkov, Jelenа Stojаnović, Dejana Pakledinac, Sаšа Kаrаnović, Wolfgang Lange, Dejan Kragulj, Anđela Ilić Rajović
The 12th Küstendorf
International Film and Music Festival
11-16 January 2019
Rasta International
Milorada Mitrovića 15
11 000 Belgrade
tel / fax: +381 11 24 31 505
Festival Office
rastaint@gmail.com
Programme Coordinator – Guest Service
Nana Kusturica
rastaint@gmail.com
Press Office
Danijela Rakić
presskustendorf@gmail.com
Publishing
Marko Milosavljević
milosavljevicorama@gmail.com
UNDER THE AUSPICES OF
